Various

The small apartment occupied by Rosalie and her father, though scrupulously neat and clean, was almost bare of furniture. A few necessary and very simple articles it contained, and nothing else, beside the lovely wax flowers upon the table, worthy of observation, except the tall and thriving rose-tree, whose bursting buds, fast unfolding into full-blown flowers, were consecrated to the memory of the departed. It was growing in the graceful Wedgwood vase in which the little Adalia had planted it, and before the recess of the window where it stood hung a curtain so thin as not to exclude the air, while it answered the design for which it was intended, to screen it from the curious eye of casual visitors. This curtain was now drawn aside, revealing the graceful plant in its flush of beauty, and as Rosalie sat moulding the plastic wax into exquisite floral forms with her delicate fingers, she often turned her eyes from the still and deathlike features of her father to its green branches, drooping with the weight of their clustered buds, and a sad and tender smile would linger on her lips, and a dewy lustre moisten her soft, hazel eye as she gazed—while at times some secret thought framed itself into words, and fell in broken murmurs from her tongue.

At last she rose, and advancing to the tree, lifted a trailing branch, and wound it round a stronger one for support, tears like dew-drops falling upon its bright buds as she said—

“Yes, dear mamma, the rose-tree our Adalia planted, and which you loved, is blooming for you, and once again your daughter’s hand will strew its leaves over your snowy bed. Once more! but another year—and who will shed them there? Ah! it matters not—we shall ere then be reunited where brighter flowers than those of earth will bloom for us eternally.”

A radiant smile lighted up her sweet face as she uttered these words, and her delicate cheek flushed with the lovely but fatal hectic which lurked in her system, and set the seal of truth upon her prophecy. As she turned slowly from the window she saw her father move—he had awakened, and she hastened toward the bed. The sick man looked upon his child with a vacant eye, as she tenderly bent over him. She saw that his lips were parched, and pouring some liquid into a cup, she held it to him, and he drank eagerly.

“Have you slept well, dear papa?” she gently asked, as she tenderly arranged his pillow, and smoothed the thin hair from his furrowed brow.

He turned his dreamy eye toward her, and it brightened up with loving recollections, as he scanned in silence the features so dear, and so familiar to his heart.

“Slept!” he said at last, in a low and feeble voice. “I have been sailing, Rosalie, on a broad, bright river, and angels guided my vessel. Adalia was in my arms, and she, your angel mother, sat beside me, with her patient smile, and her sunny eye that, with its look of love, ever chased the shadows from my heart.”

“Dear papa, you weary yourself,” said the anxious girl, as he paused, laboring for breath. “Rest awhile, for I know it all—mamma was with you, and you were happy.”

“Yes,” he answered with animation, “I was happy. I felt her hand in mine, and we sailed onward and onward, far away from all sights and sounds of earth, into a glorious atmosphere, golden with the light of heaven—and all around us was His near presence, wrapping our souls in a garment of blessedness.”

“It is always round us, dear papa,” said Rosalie, alarmed at his increasing excitement; “always—even here in this poor room, where we seem left to drink the cup of poverty alone.”

“A dream!—but was it only a dream then, Rosalie?” murmured the sick man with a troubled look.

“No, dear papa; but a visitation of angels to cheer your slumbers, and whisper to your spirit of the peace and bliss of heaven,” said the gentle daughter, imprinting a kiss of love upon his cheek.

“Yes, yes; and to tell me of her guardian care,” he said; then in a clear voice, and with a burst of joyful triumph he repeated—

“‘Rejoice, thou troubled spirit! though in pain,

If thou canst take, even here, so sweet a flight;

What wilt thou in thy native seats again.’”

And so soothed by the cheering vision, the invalid sank again into a deep and peaceful slumber, which was again brightened, as the sleep of the departing often is, by glimpses of that fair spirit-land in which the sufferer is so soon to awaken.

Rosalie had just finished adjusting the bed-clothes around her father, when steps and voices were heard ascending the stairs. She glanced at the precious rose-tree, and with eager hand hastened to draw the curtain before the little recess where it stood, which she had scarcely time to do, before the door was suddenly opened, without even the ceremony of a rap, and a matronly lady, dressed in rich and fashionable costume, and attended by a female servant, entered the apartment. Rosalie instantly divined the cause of their appearance in her humble abode, for in the person of the latter she recognized one of the women who, a few days previous, had come there with a desire to purchase the cherished roses, whose bloom she watched with interest and solicitude.

For an instant she stood silent and embarrassed before the intruders, then recovering herself, with that graceful courtesy which ever distinguishes the well-bred and refined, she drew forward a chair and invited the lady to sit.

With a slight and condescending nod, Madame de Rochemont, for it was the mother of Alicia, took possession of the offered seat, at the same time casting a glance of eager inquiry around the apartment. As she did so, her eye was attracted by the lovely wax flowers which lay upon the table, and bending toward them,

“Bless me!” she exclaimed, “what exquisite flowers!” then, as a nearer view revealed to her their true quality, she added—“and of wax too, I declare! Are they for sale—and do you make them?” she asked, looking at Rosalie.

“I make them, Madame, but these are already disposed of,” replied Rosalie. “I shall gladly, however, make others if they are wished for, and as many as may be ordered.”

“Oh, it is your business, is it,” said the lady superciliously; “and pray, what may be your charge for a bunch like this?”

“Only a pound, Madame,” answered Rosalie, quietly.

“Only a pound!” repeated Madame de Rochemont, with a sneering emphasis on the “only.” “Very moderate, truly! and here are two camelias with a bud, a Provence rose, and a sprig of myrtle—why you must be making your fortune at this rate, child!”

“Considering the labor and expense attending the preparation of the material, for I color and mould the wax myself, the profit is very trifling,” said Rosalie. “Besides,” she added, “I have received few orders for the flowers, as I am almost a stranger in the city, and have commenced making them for sale only since my father’s illness.” Her voice slightly trembled as she made this allusion, but her emotion passed unheeded.

“Were your prices more moderate you would have more orders than you could execute,” said Madame de Rochemont. “For instance, if you consent to charge but ten shillings, instead of twenty, for a bouquet like this, which is enough in all conscience, I will take one myself, and procure you at least a dozen purchasers among my own private friends.”

“It is impossible, Madame, for me to make them at so low a price,” said Rosalie; “it would not repay me for the cost of the materials—these should bring me one pound ten, in justice to myself, but necessity compels me to part with them just now at a lower rate than I can afford; but I am to take them to the lady who ordered them at three o’clock, and I shall decline making any more at that price.”

“Well, child, you cannot expect patronage, if you persist in such extravagant terms,” said the lady, turning with an air of indifference from the wax camelias, and adding, as she again sent her searching gaze round the room—“but it was not to purchase artificial flowers that I came here this morning. My daughter’s maid, and my own, whom (with a glance at Grayson) perhaps you may recognize, in their search after flowers for the fancy ball, found their way here a day or two since, and brought back to us a story of the beautiful rose-tree you have somewhere here, and of your refusal, owing to some sort of a whim, to part with any of the flowers, though, from appearances, one would think you might have been willing to exchange what must be useless to you, for a much less sum than she was bidden to offer.”

“The roses she wished to purchase, Madame,” said Rosalie, with emotion, “have a value to me, that, with all my pressing wants, gold fails to possess. They are,” she added, tears filling her soft eyes, “memorials of a beloved mother and sister—the tree was planted by the latter, and for her sake fondly cherished, amid the wreck of almost all else that we possessed—its first flowers were laid upon her grave, and now, yearly, I watch its bloom to strew them on my mother’s—nor can I let even my poverty tempt me to neglect this duty, which, on each anniversary of her death, I promised her faithfully to perform.”

A covert sneer lurked round the mouth of Madame de Rochemont, who wanted sensibility to appreciate a sentiment so tender and refined; but there was a gentle dignity, a touching truthfulness in Rosalie’s words and manner, that checked the sarcasm which else she might have uttered, and with an air of cold nonchalance, she only said—

“Ah, I see—a little bit of romance—but never mind. If not too precious to be seen, will you favor me with a sight of this wonderful rose-tree?”

Thus requested, Rosalie advanced to the window, and drawing aside the thin curtain which screened it from observation, displayed the lovely bush with its rich wreaths of spotless buds, now rapidly unfolding in the light and warmth of a bright January sun, which streamed from the brilliant azure of a Canadian sky full upon it. Madame de Rochemont gave audible expression to her admiration at sight of the beautiful plant, and renewed her request, at any price, to obtain its blossoms. But Rosalie, true to her filial idea of love and duty, would not be tempted to depart from it, even by the sight of the offered gold, one piece of which would have lightened the incessant toil to which she was now subjected.

The continued sound of voices in the apartment at length aroused the sick man from his slumbers; and with that confused feeling which, even in health, often accompanies the first moments of awaking from a sound sleep, he looked up around, unable to conjecture where he was, or from whom or whence the unusual hum of voices proceeded. At length, his ear traced them to the window, and listening more intently, he caught some words respecting the rose-tree—a thing not less sacred to him than to his daughter—which startled and interested him. With a preternatural strength he raised himself upon his elbow, and gazed at the speakers, striving to take into his confused mind the meaning of the scene before him, when he saw the woman Grayson, while her mistress held Rosalie’s attention engaged, glide quietly to the opposite side of the tree, and screened from their notice by its thick foliage, grasp a branch with one hand, while in the other she held a glittering pair of scissors, with which she was in the act of severing it from the main stalk.

Electrified by the sight, an unwonted energy nerved him, and he sent forth a loud, unearthly cry, a sudden out-burst of mingled agony and fear, which chilled the blood of those who heard it:

“The roses, the roses! Child, child, be not faithless to your mother’s wish!” he gasped, in thrilling accents, and then sunk back exhausted on his pillow. The scissors fell from the hand of Grayson in her momentary fright, and she dropped the branch she had only partially severed; but hardened and fearless, she would almost instantly have returned to complete her purpose, had not Madame de Rochemont, with a look of mingled terror and annoyance, beckoned her away.

“Let us be gone from this place,” she said; “all the roses in the world are not worth the shock my nerves have received from the shriek of that madman yonder. Let the girl keep her flowers, if she prizes them above bread, and reap the fruits of her folly, as she will doubtless do soon. Come, Grayson—I am in haste; for I cannot breathe in this horrid attic another moment;” and sweeping past the bed without turning a glance of pity or inquiry toward the apparently dying man, over whom the poor daughter was bending in love and terror, she disappeared through the door, followed by her reluctant waiting-woman.

Grayson, however—as determined a she-wolf as ever thirsted for the blood of an innocent lamb—had by no means relinquished her purpose. She was to receive a rich bribe from Alicia if she succeeded in it, and she was resolved not to give it up. Ferris was too conscientious and too tender-hearted to do any thing further in the matter, and she would have lost her place for declining, had not her services been too valuable to her selfish young mistress to be lightly dispensed with. But Grayson was troubled with no such scruples of conscience, and the moment she saw her mistress seated in her carriage, which waited at the end of the little street, and had received her dismission, she returned to a small Canadian house which stood just opposite the one she had recently quitted, the occupants of which, an old man and woman, were known to her.

Under the pretence of paying them a friendly visit, she sat down at the window to watch for Rosalie, who, she remembered to have said, that at three o’clock she was to take home the wax flowers she had made. She waited patiently till the hour arrived—but then, when minute after minute passed on, till a quarter sounded from the old clock of the French Seminary, she began to fear that the sick man was either dead, or so much worse as to prevent his daughter from leaving him. However, just as she was hesitating what course to pursue, the door of the opposite house was opened, and Rosalie appeared, with the gray capote of her little Canadian cloak drawn closely over her head—for it was snowing fast—and carrying a small basket in her hand. She tripped quickly down the narrow street, and when Grayson saw her turn the corner, she rose and said she must be going, but that she would first just step over the way and see how the sick man was, to whom her mistress sometimes sent jelly. The old woman nodded her approbation of the neighborly act, and Grayson departed on her wicked errand. She found the street-door opposite open, and softly ascending the stairs, she reached the attic without encountering any one.

Rosalie had left the door of her room slightly a-jar when she went out, as was her custom, that the woman who occupied the apartment below—a decent and quiet person—might hear her father’s bell, should he touch the small one beside him. She had left him in a tranquil sleep, and apparently recovered from the preceding excitement, and expecting to be absent a very short time, she felt no more anxiety than usual respecting him, nor hesitated to leave him alone as she was in the habit of doing when obliged to go out.

Grayson softly entered the room, and with the stealthy step of a cat glided swiftly across it, casting a furtive glance at the sleeper as she passed the bed to assure herself that all was safe—then flinging aside the curtain which concealed the rose-tree, she drew forth her sharp, bright scissors, and commenced the work of destruction. Wreaths and clusters of those bursting buds and full-blown roses she relentlessly severed from the parent tree, depositing them in a capacious handkerchief which she had spread upon the floor to receive them, till the beautiful plant—but just now crowned with living bloom and beauty—stood before her shorn and disfigured by her cruel theft.

In haste to be gone, she cast the last roses on her heap of spoils, and was carefully drawing the corners of the handkerchief together that she might not crush them, when a low sort of hissing sound from the bed startled her. She looked up, and at the sight which met her view, even her bold heart quailed with momentary fear and awe. Sitting upright, she beheld Mr. La Motte, his tall, erect form emaciated almost to a skeleton, one hand feebly grasping the pillow for support, the other, thin and shadowy, stretched with a menacing gesture toward her. His ghostly face, rendered still more so by the black hair, streaked with gray, which had grown long during his illness, and which hung round it, giving it the livid hue of death; but intense life seemed centered in his eyes, which—dark as night, deep sunk and large—glared upon her with a look of terrible rage and ferocity, while his skinny lips, drawn apart in a vain effort to give utterance to his wrath, disclosed two rows of teeth glittering with deathly whiteness, that lent a supernatural aspect to the countenance.

Quickly gathering up the stolen roses, Grayson darted toward the door; but when the sick man saw her actually escaping with the treasured flowers, his agony burst forth in burning words:

“Fiend! fiend!” he shouted; “you have robbed the dead! they are here—they call you to give back—give back—the—” and his speech failing by degrees, and his unnatural strength yielding before the violence of the effort he made, he fell over insensible on the edge of the bed, upsetting the little table, and causing the hand-bell—placed on it for his use—to roll on the floor, ringing out its loudest peal as it fell.

Without a moment’s pause, Grayson rushed down the two pair of shaking stairs to the lower lobby. She found the street-door closed, and while she was attempting to open it—which in her haste she did not quickly accomplish—she heard the woman who occupied the room below the attic, come out and ascend the stairs; and a moment after, her voice sounded from the upper landing, calling to some one below—“Pray come up, quick! I think the sick man is dead! Where is the girl? Can no one find her, to come to her father?”

Grayson waited to hear no more, but hastily quitting the house, ran as fast as her feet could move down the little street. Just as she turned the corner, she encountered Rosalie, who started and turned pale, and Grayson thought looked suspiciously at her; but she carried the bundle of roses hidden under her cloak, and so she passed on unquestioned. Rosalie, too—though with a heart filled with dark misgivings—went quickly on her homeward way, to find, alas! those misgivings more than realized in the new misfortunes which there awaited her.

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